I put up my Christmas lights last weekend, but earlier in the week, I went on Amazon to order timers for my lights. When I initially looked at timers, the ones I wanted were available for next-day delivery, but when I went back to pull the trigger on the sale, they couldn’t be delivered for two weeks.

They arrived today, not in two weeks as they said they would be, but a week and a half. I know many people who would gibe me for complaining about having to wait a week and a half for a delivery, but I believe I’m well justified in my grievance.

I used to be able to walk into a store, buy an item, walk out, go home, and use it the same day. I can’t do that anymore, however, because stores, despite having the aisles so cluttered with shit you can’t move through the store, don’t sell anything anymore.

Take these timers, for instance. I couldn’t buy these in any store in the city I live in, so I had to go online. A few years ago, I might have been able to get them in two days, but now I can’t even do that. So, yeah, it pisses me off that I have to wait for shit that I used to be able to buy same day.

The other day, I saw a Robert Reich video on YouTube calling for the boycott of Amazon. Okay, fine, let’s boycott Amazon. Just one thing, though. Where the fuck am I supposed to shop? I still need stuff, and more and more, Amazon is the only fucking place I can get it. I understand the frustration with these massive corporations fucking us in the ass, but the time to boycott them was 30 plus years ago, before they became these immovable objects, not now that they are the only places to be able to buy the shit we need to live day-to-day.

The city I grew up in successfully staved off Walmart’s encroachment when adjacent cities gave in. The small stores that sold more specialized, niche items hung around a little longer there than everywhere else, but ultimately they were forced out, too. Perhaps if more people were outraged then, we wouldn’t have to be now.

Mr. Reich’s argument for boycotting Amazon was that they settled a class action lawsuit for 2.5 billion dollars. The lawsuit was meant to go to trial, but was settled instead for .01% of what Amazon is worth. So, tell me, if $2,500,000,000 is such a drop in the bucket for a company of Amazon’s size that it was little more than a slap on the wrist, how is the few thousand dollars I spend at Amazon each year going to impact their bottom line?

Besides that, how many businesses do I have to boycott before we win? I’m already boycotting Walmart, Home Depot, and every health insurance company in the country. I don’t eat McDonald’s, and I’ve never eaten Chick-fil-A, even when it was free at my kid’s mock trial competition. I’ve never even set foot inside a Hobby Lobby. Look, I’m all for sticking it to these fucking billionaire cunts, but give me an actionable solution, not this petty, passive, I’m gonna take my ball and go home bullshit.